Sunday, March 16, 2008

Why I love chick flicks!

It’s no secret that I like romantic movies, “Chick Flicks” as they are known in many circles. One of my favorite things to do is wake up early in the morning, while the sun is still sleeping, and I watch a few chick flicks.

Since I work mostly at night, I find certain sadness at night. Maybe that’s why I like watching movies alone in the dark. While I am driving along, sometimes on the same street, I see lights in houses going on and some turning off. Perhaps those lights going off belong to a computer gamer, who just topped his high score, now going to bed. Or maybe a writer who just found the right words or turn of phrase to make his readers cry, laugh or think.

I’d like to think that those lights flickering into life belong to someone rising early, much like me, who feeds the wheels of life’s ‘machine,’ getting up to make muffins for the masses. The lights might belong to a young couple waking to check on their sick infant, worried if the child is alright.

But the saddest things I see at night are the people, especially the ones that patronize coffee shops and convenience stores where I have to deliver to. The dejected faces of half drunk bar patrons going home to their little homes, unhappy with their lives. The pitiful faces of retired graveyard shift workers, up now because they have spent a lifetime reprogramming their biorhythms into being up all night and even now they can’t sleep during the day like the rest of the world does. These elderly people are usually nursing a coffee and eagerly await the next person they can recite the story of “The Great Forklift Accident of 1975” to.

But chick flicks wring my emotions more than all of these people, whether their situations are imagined by me or not, combined. I’d like to think it’s the romantic in me who likes to see the people on the screen enjoying a first kiss, their souls dancing together for the first time. They are locked in that special embrace, before (or sometimes oblivious to) the day to day mechanics of the relationship.

For example, at the end of ‘You’ve Got Mail, are Joe and Kathleen really thinking about who is going to pick up the dry cleaning in the future, or who is going to drive to their weekend getaway in the Catskills? Is Kathleen really upset about Joe’s snoring keeping her awake at night? No! That’s why the line “Could you find it in your heart to forgive me?” leading up to “I was hoping it was you,” sent me running to the tissue box every time I watch the movie.

And another example; does in Ana in ‘Notting Hill’ put any thought into what their lives would REALLY be like when she tells William, “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” *sniff sniff* I get choked up at this one too.

So this is why I love chick flicks. The writers/directors prove to me in two hours or less that age, culture, social status, death (as in Ghost), or time (watch Love Letter) that people will find each no matter how weird, normal, or outrageous the situation is. The movies provide a snapshot what’s really in my heart and not in my head. Because according to these movies, the pesky mechanical details of a relationship will work themselves out, even when money is tight, a ghost lover points you in the direction of a person living who is worthy of your love, even the awkwardness of sex will work out. And not just the awkwardness of first time sex, even after 5 years in a relationship sometimes sex is awkward at times.